Materials for the Jan. 9 EGNC Meeting

Materials for the Jan. 9 EGNC Meeting

In a break from recent custom, the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council is holding a meeting this month. It will take place on Wednesday, January 9 in the usual place (Corbin Senior Center) at the usual time (7pm). Brave the cold in exchange for the warm, fuzzy feeling of doing good for the neighborhood.

The agenda for the upcoming January 9 meeting and the minutes from last month’s meeting on December 12 are now available. Grab them on the “Downloads” page or just get them here:

We’ll be getting a head start on 2013 by discussing the ever-popular Spring Cleanup, planning for a summer concert series in Corbin and Emerson Parks, and suggesting possible logo/branding ideas for the neighborhood to snazz things up.

We look forward to seeing you there!

What Is a Walk Score?

What Is a Walk Score?

In the recent print mailing, we mentioned that Emerson-Garfield scores a 73 (out of a possible 100) on WalkScore.com. That places our neighborhood third in Spokane (which nets a meager 54) — just behind Riverside/Downtown (92) and Browne’s Addition (76).

But what exactly is a walk score?

It’s an international measure of walkability and ease of pedestrian/commuter access to amenities like restaurants, stores, parks, cultural hubs, bus stops, and more. It’s primarily used by realtors to assess the amenities near an address (which will have an effect on its value).

Broadly speaking, the higher the walk score, the less you’ll need a car, and consequently the more of a “community” feeling there will be. Walking or cycling instead of driving generally means more interaction with the neighbors and small businesses around you — and ultimately that’s better for our health, our economy, our property values, and the environment.

But we shouldn’t take Emerson-Garfield’s reassuring walk score for granted. All it takes is one bad planning idea or concentrated criminal activity to ruin a neighborhood’s accessibility. So it’s a quality of our neighborhood that we should work to preserve.

With that in mind, we’ve added a “Walk Score” page to the website. You can keep an eye on how it changes over time, and you can even type in your own address to see your home’s walk score.

New Year’s Neighborhood Mailers

New Year’s Neighborhood Mailers

Residential households and businesses all over Emerson-Garfield have begun receiving neighborhood mailers over the past few days. They look like this:

Many of us found out about the neighborhood council and its activities through print mailings (like the sadly defunct West Central Community Newspaper), and it was important to make sure that we continued to spread the word about how to get involved. The more people who take a stake in this neighborhood, the better it will be for all of us.

Normally, the EGNC doesn’t have the money to cover the costs of a neighborhood-wide mailing like this one, which is why they aren’t sent out more regularly. Steps are being taken to increase the frequency of mailings in the future, but there are still limitations to what can be done with the available funding.

How to Apply for Street Trees & Sidewalks

How to Apply for Street Trees & Sidewalks

Of all the questions posed to the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council, some of the most common ones concern street trees and sidewalks. How do you get them if your house doesn’t already have them? How do you go about dealing with old/diseased/overgrown trees or repairing cracked/uneven sidewalks?

Both are projects that must be dealt with on the city level. The EGNC (like all neighborhood councils across Spokane) acts as an intermediary in many of these cases by helping you formulate your request in the right way and bringing your project to city’s attention.

For street trees, you can download this work order form (Word .doc), fill out the required fields, and submit it to the address provided. Our neighborhood council allocates a certain amount of funding for street trees every year, so if they are made aware of your request, they can try to ensure that there are sufficient funds.

If sidewalks are your concern, your best bet is to come to the next neighborhood council meeting (typically the second Wednesday of each month; see the calendar) and speak directly with the people who handle sidewalk installation and repair requests for the neighborhood.

Every spring, missing or defective sidewalks are documented by our neighborhood on a map provided by the city’s Engineering Department. Areas in need of new or repaired sidewalks are highlighted with marker pens on the map.

In recent years a small group has also walked the neighborhood and identified addresses that are in need of new or repaired sidewalks. These addresses are added to the map as well, and the whole thing is submitted back to the Engineering Department in late spring.

The city’s combined neighborhood sidewalk contract (in the $500,000 ballpark) goes out for bid and is awarded in early summer. If desired, the chosen contractor then walks the areas indicated on the map with the neighborhood rep to talk about the work to be done. Construction occurs in the late summer and early autumn. (And, yes, it does happen.)

If you have any other questions about sidewalks, streets trees, or neighborhood-related issues in general, please don’t hesitate to get in touch using our contact page.

Winter Potluck 2012

Winter Potluck 2012

The Emerson-Garfield winter potluck will take place on Wednesday, December 12 at 6pm at the Corbin Senior Center. If you live, work, or own property in the neighborhood, you’re invited!

We’re hoping that the attendance will be as high (or better yet, higher) as it was for the summer potluck back in August.

Got a favorite Christmas cookie recipe? A seasonal salad? Bring it along! Since we won’t have the added bounty of the community garden during the winter months, everyone is encouraged to bring a dish to ensure there’s enough food to go around.

The regularly scheduled neighborhood council meeting will follow at 7pm.

Hope to see you there!